Dos and Don’ts: How to Manage Two Colleagues Who Are Fighting

People disagree at work. That’s a given. But what if there’s an all-out war between two of your coworkers? What’s the right way to respond? If the people fighting are your direct reports, you have a duty to intervene, but what if they’re your peers? Should you play the role of peacekeeper? Or should you just stay out of it? Whether or not you get involved will depend on how enmeshed you are in the situation. If either person approaches you to complain or to enlist your help, you have to respond in some way. And while you may not be their manager, you have a responsibility to make sure work gets done.

But intervening is not always a straightforward prospect. “Peer-to-peer conflict is often fuzzy,” says Roderick Kramer, a social psychologist and the William R. Kimball Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. It’s not always clear who’s responsible and you may not know what to do. “People often find themselves in over their head. They think they can intervene, make suggestions, feel good about themselves, and move the conflict forward in a constructive way. But that’s not always possible,” says Kramer. Here’s how to respond next time you find yourself in the middle of a coworker battle.